The present invention relates to a device for sweeping surfaces, particularly carpets and the like.
Carpet-sweeping and similar devices are already known and usually they include a housing in which there is mounted for rotation at least one cylindrical brush which contacts the surface being swept, picks up dirt from such surface as it is being rotated about the axis, and transports the picked-up dirt in a path for deposition in a dirt-collecting receptacle or a plurality of such receptacles.
In the conventional devices of this type, it has been proposed to define the dirt-collecting receptacles by portions of the housing. Inasmuch as the collected dirt must be periodically discharged from the dirt-collecting receptacle or receptacles, it has also already been proposed to displaceably mount one of the portions of the housing which defines the dirt-collecting receptacle on the remainder of the housing, so as to be able to discharge the accumulated dirt through a discharge opening which, in the normal working condition, is closed by such displaceable portion. However, experience has shown that these conventional arrangements are disadvantageous in that, when it is desired to discharge the accumulated dirt from the dirt-collecting receptacle or receptacles, it is necessary to transport the entire sweeping device to a waste receptacle or the like, upon which the dirt-collecting receptacle is emptied of the dirt which has previously accumulated therein. However, inasmuch as the sweeping device is usually provided with an elongated actuating handle, this dirt-discharging operation is rather cumbersome and difficult to accomplish.